Săpânţa in the Carpathians… a “Merry” Cemetery and a “Peri” Monastery

Let’s start with some snaps of the Săpânţa-Peri Monastery:

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Now, let’s walk on over to the “Merry Cemetery”…

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Here is the grave of Stan Ioan Pătraş (1908-77), the local woodcarver who started the custom of creating sardonic and witty grave-markers in 1935. The tradition is carried on by his protégé, Dumitru Pop. The Merry Cemetery is a UNESCO World Heritage Site… and rightly so.

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Some notes on the history of Săpânţa…

Săpânţa has an interesting history, like so many other places in the Carpathians. It is almost right on the border between Carpatho-Russia proper and Romania, so one can see that it has both Romanian and Carpatho-Russian influences.

Take the Peri Monastery, for instance. It was originally built around 1391, and had a Romanian language press in 1696. In 1703, Magyar Protestants despoiled and destroyed it. The present foundation dates from 2003… it is the tallest wooden church in Europe, at 78 metres (256 feet).

In religious composition, there is an interesting difference between the 1930 and 2002 censuses. Let’s look at them.

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1930 Census:

• 2,577 Uniate Catholic (69.14/94.46 percent)
• 999 Jewish (26.80 percent)
• 88 Adventist (2.36/3.22 percent)
• 29 Orthodox (0.8/1.08 percent)
• 34 none/not given (0.9/1.24 percent)
• 3,727 total population (2,728 total non-Jewish population)

The first percentage figure is a proportion of the total population; the second is without the Jewish population, to facilitate comparison with the 2002 data. This is not anti-Semitic… isn’t it sad that I must include such a disclaimer? This shows how degenerate and litigious Americans have become…

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2002 Census:

• 2,936 Orthodox (89.87 percent)
• 257 Adventist (7.87 percent)
• 65 Uniate Catholic (1.99 percent)
• 3 Pentecostal
• 1 Roman Catholic
• 1 Reformed Calvinist
• 3,267 total population

The 2002 total population is 87.66 percent that of 1930, but the non-Jewish population shows a 19.76 percent increase. This demographic pattern is seen all over the area of the old Jewish settlement in that part of the world… it is a mute testimony to the Nazi massacres. However, note the complete flip-flop in the positions of the Uniates and the Orthodox. Many, if not most, non-Galician Uniates who returned to the Church, stayed there. Indeed, even in Galicia, many who returned to the Faith remained loyal. There is a loud Galician Uniate diaspora in the USA and Canada… they do their best to influence the news media, politicians, and academe. As they outnumber Russian Orthodox in the diaspora (which is opposite the situation in the homeland), they manage to get their voices heard. Add to this the fact that the Catholics are the largest single body in both the USA and Canada, they have an easy task, whereas ours is much harder. I’m NOT whining, I’m just stating the facts as they lie on the ground.

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In 1790, the Hapsburgs forced the people of the region into the Unia at sword-point. What is telling is that the people of Săpânţa, like so many others in the Carpathians, retained loyalty to Orthodoxy after the fall of the communist régime. Lies issue forth from the usual sources that all those who left Uniatism after World War II returned after the fall of the Bolshies. That is NOT true in the Carpathians. The Uniates attempted to seize the churches by force, and the Carpathian Orthodox people, both Carpatho-Russian and Carpatho-Romanian (they are very similar peoples), had to defend their buildings and clergy from violent Uniate mobs. That is why JP’s recent participation in the so-called Lumen Gentium conference was so disgusting and noisome. He gave aid and comfort to the Uniate enemies of the Church… and ignored a bishop of the UOC (MP) visiting NYC… they stand on the frontline against Uniate aggression and proselytism, after all.

In Săpânţa, in the period from 1990 through the first decade of the 2000’s, the conflict between the Orthodox and Uniates in the village attracted media attention. Only a few families returned to Uniatism, and the community refused to hand over the Merry Cemetery and its church, which was built in 1886, to the Uniates. The Uniates claim that the local administration prevents them from building a new church. According to the Orthodox side, in 1997, the then-mayor, a Uniate, stole from the offerings to the dead. The neo-Gothic church steeple of the Orthodox church was torn down in 2009, and a New Roman-style roof is planned to replace it.

Unfortunately, the reason for the disappearance of the Jewish community in Săpânţa was the tragic mass killing of the Jews in Central and Eastern Europe by the Nazis in World War II. People such as “Bishop” Williamson should hang their heads in shame… there is ample historical evidence of what happened, and I have met both liberators and former prisoners. Talk to the men who liberated Bergen-Belsen or Oświęcim … they’ll tell you the truth.

In short, Săpânţa is Carpathia in microcosm. It has the straightforward and unflinching attitude of the Carpathian peoples, and the papists shan’t bully them. Keep that in mind if you ever read Byzantine Texas… “Josephus Flavius” is an apologist for the extreme papist line. I should add that I know that most RCs are better than that. However, do know this. We have no wish to be unfriendly or nasty, but we shall NEVER accept a Unia… we are NOT “Orthodox in union with Rome”, and we never shall be such. JP should hang his head in shame for attending a pro-Uniate conference when a bishop of a Confessor-Church was in NYC… that’s LOW and without defence. Let God see such and judge him for it…

Barbara-Marie Drezhlo

Tuesday 6 July 2010

Albany NY

Editor’s Update:

Here’s a little something from one of my stalwart Carpatho correspondents…

Great news about the move away from Uniatism. I read some years ago that in Carpatho-Russia, with a million people, there are 20 Orthodox monasteries.

“Uncle Milosh”

No commentary needed, eh? That’s why the Carpatho people are precious to me… there’s no guile or BS in ’em!

BMD

Further Update 08.07.10:

A Romanian friend sent me this:

What a treat with Săpânţa! I enjoyed it as much as when I was in person there! That was QUITE a long time ago. Maramureş is a magic country. It is from there that the Orthodox persecuted by the Hungarian Catholics fled to the East and funded the Voivodate of Moldova, which remained a shield of Orthodoxy for hundreds of years. The whole recent fuss about the “destruction” of the cemetery is a train load of pure BS. It shows only the desperation of some attention-seeking Uniates, desperate that nobody pays any attention to them any more. They want the cemetery because it is a source of tourist revenue.

As to the the disappearance of the Jewish population from the region, the Horthyist Magyars are to blame for that. Maramureş was occupied by Hungary at the time. Let me tell you, the Horthyist death squads were not soft on Romanians either, you may have heard of the massacre of Ip… a village in Maramureş. This easily verifiable truth does not move the Holocaust Industry which continues to blame Romania (and asks for compensation) for their deportation to Auschwitz! Elie Wiesel, the great liar, who was born in Sighetul Marmaţiei (Máramarossziget), peddles this line with the approval of the ADL and Simon Wiesenthal Center.

That’s right… decent people can condemn the Nazi murder of the Jews and the “Holocaust Industry” equally. They are both reprehensible. The one was an enormity… the other is an attempt by some to make profit from that enormity. I think that the latter is worse… it’s spitting on the graves of the dead, after all, just for the sake of filthy lucre. There’s nothing “Anti-Semitic” about it.

BMD